Talent with Taste

The Rosendale Cafe

by Peter Aaron and photographs by F-Stop Fitzgerald, September 25, 2007

It’s just before 5pm and the phone is ringing. On the other end is the Rosendale Cafe’s Mark Morganstern with an update on tonight’s sure-fire sell-out by septuagenarian blues legend Louisiana Red.

“Listen, Red’s wife, Dora, just called,” Morganstern says. “They’re in New London, Connecticut. She thinks they can be here in about two hours. No way. If we’re lucky, they’ll roll in just in time for Red to set up and play.” But the cafe’s famously tasteful talent booker seems barely fazed by the delay. “Oh, well, that’s the blues, I guess. We’ll be fine.”

Half an hour before show time, however, Red’s straight-back chair is still waiting, empty, on a tiny riser against the long wall in the middle of the one-room venue. None of the patrons in the packed house are complaining, though; they’re all engaged in conversation or chowing down on veggie quesadillas or tofu stroganoff. Yet, to a former promoter, the uncertainty of the star’s whereabouts all too quickly brings back certain nail-biting episodes of the 1980s. Will he show, or will the premises face mass refunds and rioting, angry blues fans?

Neither, thank God. As if on cue, Red and Dora’s car pulls into the parking lot with only minutes to spare. Morganstern and some helpers carry the musician’s amp and guitars in and set them up. The booking agent next returns to help the blind elder bluesman to the stage and introduces him to the audience with palpable reverence, humility, and graciousness. Then it’s goosebumps all around as Red gets to work, growling away, stomping his foot a la John Lee Hooker, and slap-plucking his guitar like Son House. It’s the real deal, all right. Rack up yet another stellar performance at the Rosendale Cafe, though not without a little sweat.

But after 14 years of presenting a truly unparalleled balance of world-class live music, eye-catching local art, and renowned vegetarian cuisine, Morganstern, whose focused intent, wild gray hair, and bushy mustache might one day land him the lead in The Albert Einstein Story, has built up a knack for riding out such potential difficulties. He’ll be the first to tell you, however, that it’s been a communal effort the whole way: Mark’s wife of 23 years, Susan Dorsey, co-owns the restaurant and oversees its menu; the couple’s three children, Luke, 21, Lily, 17, and Harry, 11, can all be seen waiting tables and helping out; and the business also employs a dedicated, hardworking staff of young students, musicians, and artists.

Together with some early partners, the Mark and Susan opened the eatery-cumvenue in September 1993, directly across the road from its present location in what had been the Tea & Foibles coffeehouse. Susan, a slim, studied dancer who holds a degree in theater and also works as a professional doula (assistant to the mother during childbirth) rolls her eyes as she recalls the period right before they took the plunge. “We thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun to have a little, simple coffee shop?’,” she says with a short laugh. “We had no idea we’d end up with something like this. But back then Rosendale really had nowhere to go if you wanted to eat out, unless you count the Stewart’s Shop on Route 32. So we decided to reopen [the original coffeehouse] as a vegetarian restaurant—healthy fast food, using organic ingredients as much as possible—and it just took off. People were telling us they drove for miles just to get our apple crisp and coconut cake. So then we thought, ‘Why not book some music, too?’”

Since the day that fateful question was asked, the list of luminaries to have graced the cafe’s modest space has grown to include some of the most revered, iconic, and promising new performers of folk, jazz, blues, rock, and world music; names like Janis Ian, Reggie Workman, Graham Parker, Chris Smither, Steve Forbert, Honeyboy Edwards, Dave Van Ronk, Tin Hat Trio, Ron Carter, Mary Gauthier, Eilen Jewell, Don Byron, and Mark Murphy, to name just a fraction. (In April, the bistro even hosted a talk by Ralph Nader, who was in town to promote the Rosendale Theater’s screening of An Unreasonable Man.)